In the past several years hemostatic clips have been introduced to supplant prior art suturing techniques for the purpose of tying off bleeding blood vessels in surgery and traumatic medical care. The clips are applied by any of a plethora of tools known in the prior art. Generally, the tool includes opposed jaws which crimp the U-shaped clip flat, blocking the lumen of the blood vessel engaged between the opposed legs of the clip.
It is usually advantageous to provide a plurality of clips in the tool, and to feed them serially to the jaws, thus saving the time of the surgical team in applying the clips singularly. Given such a tool, it should be possible to greatly hasten and facilitate an important and necessary part of virtually every surgical procedure.
However, deficiencies in prior art tools have limited the usefulness and acceptance of hemostatic clips in surgery and trauma care. Many of the simpler applicator tools do not crimp the clip completely flat, so that all bleeding is not stopped. Furthermore, the clip feed mechanisms are often unwieldy, requiring manual contortions which are difficult and tiresome to the user. Also, the manual motion required to dispense and crimp the clip often causes erratic motion of the tool, especially at the delivery end, so that placement of the clip can only be approximate. In many surgical procedures, this factor is unacceptable.
There are more substantial tools known in the prior art which overcome the difficulties enumerated above. One such exemplary tool is described in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 237,465, filed Feb. 23, 1981 by the present inventors. Such a tool, however, is relatively expensive compared to the cost of the hemostatic clips which are typically used in a single surgical procedure. Also, the tool must be sterilized and reloaded after each use. Thus, there is a disincentive for hospitals and physicians to purchase such a tool. Clearly there is a need in the art for a simple tool, inexpensive to manufacture and sell, which easily and accurately dispenses and crimps a number of hemostatic clips.